Genesis 14:22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth.
In Genesis 14 you find a picture of Abraham that you don’t normally consider. We usually think of Abraham as the white-bearded, wise, old patriarch, which he was, but he was also a mighty warrior. The Bible tells us that when some marauding kings took his nephew, Lot, prisoner along with all the possessions they had spoiled from the city, Abraham took action. Abraham was a man of great means and great power. Verse 14 says, “And when Abram heard his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.”
Now, Abraham didn’t have 318 servants; he had many more. These were just the servants born in his house who had been trained for battle. This was just the tip of the iceberg. Here is a man with so much money that he had all these servants and so much might that he could train and arm these servants from birth to win against sovereign kingdoms. Now God gave him the victory, no doubt about that, but my point is that Abraham was a mighty and wealthy man.
When Abraham brought back all the spoil that had been taken from the king of Sodom, the Bible says that the king of Sodom said unto Abraham, “Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. He basically said, “Thank you Abraham. We are just so grateful that I want you to keep all the things you recovered. Just let us have our families back.”
I love Abram’s answer. Verse 22 says, “And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth.” God owns everything, and Abraham acknowledged that. He goes on to say, “I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.”
Abraham said, “King, I am not taking a thing from you. My God is the God Who owns everything in Heaven and in earth. He is the possessor of Heaven and earth. We are nothing but stewards. I don’t have a hand out toward you; I have a hand up toward God. I don’t want you to give me a thing lest you would think that you have made me rich.” We learn from Abraham that you will not live a life of faith until you acknowledge that God owns it all.
Here is a man with great wealth who realized that God owned it all. Here is a man who knew the strife of owning things. The Bible says that he and Lot had so many possessions that there was strife between their herdsmen and the land couldn’t contain all they had. So, here was a man who had learned that our ownership of things can cause strife.
Here is a man who knew the peace of trusting. He said, “God is the possessor of Heaven and earth, and I trust Him.”
He also knew the joy of giving. When Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God, came, Abraham gave him tithes of all. Why was Abraham so ready to give this tithe? It was because he realized that God already owns it all.
There is a sense in which you cannot be generous because God already owns it. But you can be honest! There is nothing that you have that God hasn’t given you first. There is nothing you can give to God that God hasn’t given you first except gratitude. What a change in mindset when we realize that God owns everything!
If God owns everything, then it just makes sense that you would be more inclined to trust Him and less inclined to trust yourself. Whatever you have in life, whatever God has put in your hands, you will not live a life of faith until you acknowledge that God owns it all.